I was born in Melbourne but we left when I was two and then spent a couple of years in Perth before leaving Australia. I grew up in Durban, South Africa. My mother's family are from the beautiful Cape region. My family travelled a lot, including a year spent in Princeton, USA (the town where my parents first met), in my early teens.

Wherever I was, from kindergarten onwards, I always chose art as a subject and also loved running and swimming (nothing better in the world than bodysurfing!), ballet and rugby. I was also fascinated by politics; not surprisingly coming from South Africa. Mixed up though South Africa was, I loved the people, the wildlife, the heart of the country. I had two wonderful art teachers at my high school- wild haired, colourfully dressed, eccentric women who set high standards and inspired me to spend many hours during and after school happily humming to myself and painting.

In my late teens, we left South Africa and returned to Australia; a wrenching experience as any immigrant will tell you! Fortunately I have grown to love Melbourne.

I graduated from the University of Melbourne with a BA (Hons), Fine Arts with Politics. I wasn't at all convinced that a career in Art History would satisfy me and so decided to follow my heart and went on to do a painting course at RMIT. I particularly enjoyed life drawing ... some of my drawings leaned heavily towards caricature it must be said. To their credit my lecturers let me have my fun! Seeing what was out in the greeting card world at the time, I decided to produce a range of greeting cards and from there I picked up illustration work.

I now work as a freelance illustrator and also in the publishing industry. I would like nothing more than to continue to be an illustrator into my old age... it's as good as bodysurfing. Improving my chess would be good too.